How many hours did civil servants work a hundred years ago and did they experience stress? What did the introduction of a weekly day of rest mean for crowd control in the Roman bathhouses? How did sex workers in early modern Japan manage to charge by the hour? And how did merchants schedule their business ventures during the insecure period of the Black Death? These are just a few examples of the questions addressed during the international Lived Time conference held here at Amsterdam from 26 to 28 November 2024.
For three days, 16 international experts discussed with our project team aspects of Lived Time: Routines, Temporal Norms and Identities from Antiquity to the Modern World. This gathering of specialists from different countries and different fields of expertise (history, sociology, religious studies, archaeology, literature studies, etc.) and with specialisms ranging geographically from Britain to Japan and chronologically from ancient Egypt to the present) offered a vivid illustration of the surging academic interest in temporality (how people are in time or experience time) in the humanities. This so-called ‘temporal turn’ has led to a wave of new publications on people’s relation with time in the last 15 years or so, building on a pre-existing and more gradually developing philosophical and sociological interest in this topic. The specific focus of the Lived Time conference was on everyday experiences of time: how people’s routines and everyday responses to societal norms about the timing of activities affect their performances of the self and the workings of societies.
The conference started with a general introduction and case study by the project team (Sofie Remijsen, Eugenio Garosi), followed a more conceptual introduction to the structures of social time by the experienced sociologist of time Ignace Glorieux. The remainder of the conference was organized around thematic clusters: the experience of time during historical epidemics (Jeroen Puttevils, Kristine Johanson), festivals (Stefan Feuser, Elsa Lucassen), rhythms of bathing and the lack thereof (Uta Heil, Anna Geurts), work schedules (Daniel Soliman, Gerrit Verhoeven, Mark Hailwood, Renate Dekker), sleep and idleness (Sarit Kattan Gribetz, Brigitte Steger, James Ker) and instruments for timing (Matthew Champion, Angelika Koch). The final session looked at modern experiences of time connected to the use of fossil fuels (On Barak, Peter van Dam).
In each session, as well as across the sessions, there were interesting points of convergence in the research of specialists from different fields. Daily rhythms, for example, persist and turn out to be quite conservative despite societal change. This has been observed in modern time use studies but is equally visible in the slow take up of Sunday rest or in what is now increasingly interpreted as a continuity in the hours spend in the early age of industrialization. Both in the first Egyptian monasteries and in the daily work of civil servants around 1900, to give another example, leaders allowed scope for individual adaptations to – at first sight rigid – institutionalized work schedules. Resemblances where also noticed in how people experienced the special qualities of non-active time.
Much has been written about our modern relation to time as a unique distinguishing feature. Rather than confirming this opposition between ‘modern’ and ‘premodern’ time, the diachronic nature of the conference allowed for identifying recurring elements in everyday experiences of time across cultural divides as well as the cultural specificities of each temporal experience. One of the central conclusions is, no doubt, that studying temporality is not (only) a goal in itself. It offers a new lens to sharpen our image of the cultural norms prevailing in historical societies and of the ways such norms and societies change.
What is the right time to arrive at a party? Arriving too early, even only a little, is kind of awkward, on time is fine, but it is definitely cooler to arrive ‘fashionably late’. Much later, however, is also not done. Luckily, most partygoers are able to navigate these unwritten social rules regarding time. These kind of mundane questions seem to us a modern luxury problem, but are they really something new? This is the topic of a lesson our team developed for secondary school children (ages 15-17). The outcome is clear: also in Rome, there were plenty of social conventions about appropriate timing.
The universality of the theme makes it of interest to audiences outside universities as well, such as adolescents. Roman time, moreover, is recognizable, as so many of the structures we use today find their origin in antiquity, such as the names of the months, the week and the 12-hour day. Even without much background knowledge, students can recognize Roman elements of time in their own daily lives. This is not typically part of the school curriculum, however. Of course, some handbooks do pay attention to the Roman calendar or the pagan origin of the week, but they typically present this information in a rather encyclopedic way. In our lesson, we want to reflect on the social experience of time as well, and invite the adolescents to reflecting on the role of time – and social conventions around time – in their own lives.
This past autumn I tried out this lesson at several schools in Amsterdam, in classes 4 and 5 VWO (ages 15-17). I gave these lessons to students as part of their Latin classes, but the material could easily be adapted to be well suited for a history course as well.
As an introduction the students were asked about their associations with the word time, which lead to a conversation about clock time, calendars and concepts such as ‘history’ or ‘the future’. Based on their input we spoke about the different possible rhythms in a year and how individual rhythms can differ between classmates. Ambiguities came up, such as school hours not measuring 60 minutes like a regular hour. And when we talk about the beginning of the year, do we mean the calendrical year or the school year? By speaking about time in an open dialogue, the theme of the lesson became clearer to the students.
Then I moved to a mainly instructive part where I taught them about Roman time measurement for hours, days, months and years. They could identify the remains of an older Roman calendar in our contemporary calendar and understood why the week is fundamentally different from days and months. We spoke about the introduction of a fixed day of rest on Sunday, and the possibly non-Christian predecessor on Thursday, illustrated by a papyrological source.
In the next part we looked at archeological sources regarding time, such as ancient clocks and a mosaic on being late and ended the lesson by reading three poems by Martial (Epigrams 2.27; 4.8; 8.67), in which he discusses everyday life and its rhythms. The students answered questions on these poems in small groups, and were asked to connect themes from the introduction to the texts. For instance in Epigram 8.67, where it is made clear that being on time for a dinner appointment is important, but it is equally not done to be so early, that you are almost on time for breakfast. To wrap up, we considered on which occasions the students desperately wanted to be on time (school!) and when it was actually better to be a little late (parties!), illustrating the close connection between time use and social norms.
The object was to make students reflect on the use of time and its connection to social norms, in the time of the Romans and now. They learned more about the Roman way of measuring time and structuring the year, and were invited to consider their own rhythms and customs as well. This combination of information and reflecting on personal experience proved well suited for the age group.
I was struck by the interest of many students, who kept asking relevant questions about the subject.
Making the connection to their own personal time use worked quite well, I think, although not all were eager to share information about their weekly rhythms – which was of course not mandatory.
The part of the lesson were I simply talked about historical time measurement and explained how the Romans structured their year was clearly the favorite element of the lessons for most students. They were intrigued by the differences regarding time to what we are used to in our time, and I think this is mainly to be ascribed to the aforementioned universality of the subject.
The question remains how this lesson can be logically embedded in the curriculum. It would fit well into a lesson series on daily life, or could provide more background information when reading Martial.
In the near future, we hope to publish a didactic article in the journal Lampas on the lesson including historical background information, meant primarily for secondary school teachers. The material for the classroom (in Dutch) will be published around the same time on this website.
Experiences of teaching Dutch primary school children about time and going to school in the Roman world
What was it like to be a Roman schoolchild? A few months ago, the project team designed an interactive tutorial about the life of Roman schoolboy and the ways of knowing time in the Roman world for school children aged 9-12. From June one, we (research assistant Kevin Hoogeveen and student assistant Hugo Oostdijk) have practiced and perfected the tutorial in primary schools in Bussum, Amstelveen and Rotterdam. In this blogpost, we share our experiences.
The goal of the lesson was to teach children about the ways in which Romans used and experienced time. A child’s morning routine and school day served as an example. We hoped that, by the end of the class, children knew more about:
1. how Romans measured time; 2. how the rhythm of people differed depending on their place in society (wealth, class, gender, being enslaved, etc.); and 3. inequality in the Roman world in general. Many children did not go to school at all, people could be enslaved and women were considered inferior to men.
For each school group, we started off with a small introduction into the Roman world with a lot of input from the children themselves. Caesar and Cleopatra were the best-known celebrities. Some were even familiar with the concept of Roman imperialism. Pointing out the fact that the Roman empire included modern-day Turkey and large parts of North Africa, and stretched all the way to Britain and Rumania, visibly fostered a sense of involvement and enhanced engagement in classes with a relatively diverse demographic.
Next, we turned our attention to a fourth-century colloquium text which describes the day of a Roman schoolboy, from the moment he gets up until the end of his school day when the teacher accidentally sends the children home early, in the conviction that the next day was going to be holiday. The text was originally designed for children who were practicing the colloquial use of Latin and Greek. Because it is written from the point of view of the child itself, it is easy for children to relate to the Roman schoolchild and compare their day with his.
The children also acted out the colloquium texts. This created an opportunity to discuss the questions related to the text that the children answered earlier, but the little plays wre above all a fun way for them to reflect better on what happened in the story and also on how the lives of characters in the text had different rhythms.
In two more practical blocks of the class, the children learnt how to make a rudimentary sundial. We took them outside to see how the gnomon’s shadow moved throughout the day like that of a modern clock.
Hugo: “I had no prior experience with teaching in any way, let alone groups of young children. I learned a lot throughout so this project was probably more educational for me than for any of the children we encountered, but I really liked to try to enthuse children for the discipline that we all feel so enthusiastic about. Aside from the general challenges of getting some of the children to listen and actively partake (the intensity of which also differed per school) the try-outs of the lesson presented us with an opportunity to run into some more specific challenges that allowed us to finetune the end product. A great example is the sundial experiment for which we planned to go outside until we had to teach a class in the pouring rain, which forced us to come up with an alternative approach for those (many) days that it rains in the Netherlands.
The most challenging aspect however, was the fact that we were developing this lesson in a way that it could be taught by a primary school teacher, and they usually don’t have such an extensive knowledge of the Roman world as people working in the ancient history department of a university. It felt nice but problematic at the same time when teachers after class complemented us on how we could answer the questions of children about a plethora of different subjects concerning the Roman world, because this is exactly what a normal teacher would not be able to do. By writing an introduction document for the teacher and an extensive step by step plan of the lesson we hope to have overcome this challenge as much as possible and I think the end product has turned out to be indeed both accessible as well as educational.”
Kevin: “Until now, I had only been a teacher at Sunday school. Teaching Roman history to children at this young age was a whole new experience to me. I thoroughly enjoyed their enthusiasm and found joy in stating that the history of the Roman empire is a shared history of many people of diverse backgrounds. The sundial demonstration proved to be most interesting element of the class, followed by the short plays with the colloquium text as script. I hope Hugo, I and the rest of the project team will prove to have been able to share our knowledge with as diverse a public as possible by developing a class suitable for use in all primary schools.”
For those interested in the origin of monastic routines, Bentley Layton’s book The Canons of Our Fathers: Monastic Rules of Shenoute (Oxford, 2014) is highly recommended. It presents the first edition of a very early collection of monastic rules written in Coptic, 595 entries in total. These rules were not transmitted as a group, but abbot Shenoute of Atripe (ca. 347-465) and his successor Besa quoted them in their writings, and Layton carefully collected these quotes.
In ca. 385, Shenoute, the most prolific author in Coptic in late antiquity, became the supreme leader of a monastic federation on the west bank of the Nile, at the edge of the desert near the ancient village of Atripe and the modern city of Sohag [see the YMAP-South map]. According to Layton, the federation was founded when Pcol, the founder of a monastery (in ca. 360), and Pshoi, the leader of an eremitic community that transformed into a monastery, decided to link their congregations. Pcol, who also founded a third monastery for women in the village of Atripe, became the first archimandrite (superior abbot) of all three congregations and male and female ascetics associated with them, while remaining the abbot of the main monastery. His successor Ebonh combined the two offices as well, but Shenoute, who lived as a hermit after leaving the main monastery, only succeeded Ebonh as archimandrite of the federation, while two abbots and an abbess directed the monasteries. In the course of time, the communities have been referred to by various names:
The central monastery for men was later called the Monastery of St Shenoute, but is best known by its modern name, the ‘White Monastery’, as the monumental church was built of white limestone. The church is still in use today.
Similarly, the northern monastery for men is officially named the Monastery of St Pshoi, but often called the ‘Red Monastery’, on account of the red limestone used in the church building. The church is still in use today and admired for its polychrome decoration.
Themonastery in the village, a cloistered community for women, no longer exists today, but has been excavated by Yale University.
These communities could include small children and youths, who participated in the daily monastic routine as much as possible like the adults. Each monastery comprised an unspecified number of houses, where monks or nuns slept and attended communal activities, including prayer and handwork sessions and instructional meetings.
In his nine-volume work called Canons, which is largely preserved and meticulously reconstructed, and in some fragmentary writings, Shenoute quoted monastic rules (nos. 1-581) written by himself or by Pcol. The latter also appears to have revised and supplemented the rules of Pachomius (ca. 292-347), who was the first monastic leader to define monastic rules (from 329 onward). Just as Shenoute added new rules in the course of time in response to practical situations, his successor Besa discussed a number of supplementary rules in two of his works (nos. 582-595). These rules do not discuss the weekly and daily schedules systematically – as these were self-evident to the monks, the most basic routines are least likely to be preserved. But all the information together does enable us to get a detailed impression of the routines in the monastic federation (see the table).
In each monastery the Eucharist was celebrated twice a week, on Saturday evening and Sunday morning. Both services were mandatory, unless someone was seriously ill or instructed to stay behind. After the Saturday mass, the monks and nuns went to sleep and got up hours before dawn for the collective prayer. During the winter, when the hours were shorter than in summer, the time to get up was 3 hours before sunrise, to ensure that the siblings recited 51 prayer units. Children attended the collective prayer as well, but they were allowed to sleep during the event. At dawn, the superiors of the three monasteries gave catechesis, after which the Eucharist took place early in the morning. During the rest of Sunday, nobody was allowed to do difficult tasks, and only easy or urgent tasks were acceptable.
On other days than Sunday, the monks and nuns got up 1,5-2 hours before sunrise. The daily prayer schedule consisted of collective prayer before dawn and in the evening, either in the churches or other communal spaces, and prayer sessions in the houses: after waking up (not noted by Layton, but implied in rule no. 169), at the first hour (dawn), at the fifth hour or the sixth (noon) at the latest, and at the ninth hour (ca. 3 PM) or the tenth at the latest. During the collective meetings, the monks and nuns usually prayed twelve rounds, while being engaged in handiwork: the monks plaited reeds, the nuns worked with wool. However, during the colder months, they prayed six rounds in the evening and did not have to work, out of concern for those who were tired of fasting or working outside, so that they could eat their bread in peace. The prayer sessions in the houses included 18 units, or 24 units in summer. Layton previously thought that they were occasions for handiwork as well, but later indicated that this was perhaps not the case (compare Layton 2007 and 2014, p. 72).
Each change of activity was signaled by the striking of wooden instruments. Except on Sunday, the monks and nuns worked in the morning and afternoon. The daily meal was normally served in the refectory at noon (once a week it was cooked), and extra bread was distributed for those who needed to eat in the evening, which they could do in private at the time for reading. The rules do not clarify whether the daily meal was postponed to the evening on the two fast days, i.e. Wednesday and Friday, and at which moment of these days the superiors of each monastery and the house leaders gave catechesis.
Reading Layton’s edition of the rules and combining details scattered throughout the collection strongly improved my understanding of how daily life in the monastic federation was organized, especially with regard to the moments reserved for prayer, work or a combination of both. As disciplined life in the cenobitic communities may have been, especially in view Shenoute’s reputation as a very strict monastic leader, the rules show room for variation depending on the season and moderation for the sake of child monks, the weary, and the sick.
Layton, B. 2007, ‘Rules, Patterns, and the Exercise of Power in Shenoute’s Monastery: The Problem of World Replacement and Identity Maintenance’, Journal of Early Christian Studies 15.1, 45-73 [on the organization of space, time and offices in the monastic federation].
Yale Monastic Archaeological Project South (YMAP-South), ‘The History and Goals of the Project’, available online at Yale Egyptology, with links to the sub projects ‘Shenoute and the History of the Monastic Federation’, ‘The White Monastery’, and ‘The Women’s Monastery near Atripe’.
The payment of rent in kind, the delivery of pre-paid wine, and the repayment of a loan in kind; all depend on the not always predictable outcome of a harvest – especially in premodern societies. Agricultural entrepreneurship was a risky business, as one was dependent on the vagaries of natures. Nature’s pace was relatively predictable – yet one could never know when impactful deviations from the common agricultural calendar, like a belated Nile flood, would occur. Agreements about future payments and deliveries nevertheless keep an economy going. In this blogpost, we will have a look at how late antique Egyptians dealt with the uncertainty of the future in their day-to-day transactions.
It was not uncommon for city dwellers to pre-order some wine from the vineyards surrounding their city. They would pay upfront and agree with the supplier on a delivery later on, like in papyrus SB 16 12486. Likewise, the payment of rent in kind by a tenant would often be scheduled after the harvest. In case of a loan of seed, for instance, the repayment was planned to take place after the borrowed seed had come to fruition and was harvested. What connects these transactions is their promised execution in a relatively loosely defined future. Wine deliveries often specify the month in which delivery is due, but the rent and loan (re)payments sometimes only refer to the moment of repayment as occurring ‘after the harvest’.
For this short survey, we will not dive into the specific contract types of Roman private law, nor into the difference between transactions determined by a strict interpretation of the law (stricti iuris) or made in good faith (bonae fidei). Of concern here is the imagination of the future in the time clauses (dies) we find in various kinds of agreements. The clauses we are dealing with in this blogpost are all dies a quo, postponements of a due date. This means that an obligation to e.g. repay seed loaned out for sowing is due from the moment the contract exists but is postponed to a later date. Time clauses always refer to an event that will surely happen, either at known moment in time, dies certus, or inevitably, but surely, dies incertus quando.
Both types appear in the examples above. At first sight, the dies certus clause seems to be vaguer in contracts that speak of a month rather than a day. Mentioning a month instead of just one day is, however, a clever dealing with an uncertain future that testifies to knowledge of agricultural reality. The last day of that month in this case is the ultimate dies a quo after which the creditor could give the debtor a default notice. The delineated month protects the rights of the creditor. The ‘month dies’ is also beneficial to the debtor. First of all, one has to always keep in mind that, in Roman law, the payment of a debt before a due date does not automatically absolve the debtor of his obligation towards the creditor without the explicit consent of the latter. Additionally, one can hardly plan a harvest so precisely that a debtor with a fair amount of certainty can live up to the promise of delivery on one specific day. By choosing a dies (literally: day) with a month’s length and choosing the month in which comparable deliveries usually take place, the debtor can more realistically fulfill his obligation and he prevents possible additional storage costs for his wares.
The same logic applies to the vaguer ‘after the harvest’-clauses, which are dies incertus quando. This more flexible clause is more favorable to the debtor since the harvest is the point of reference and determines the possibility of the creditor to give notice of default.
In both situations, in the ‘after the harvest’-clauses even more so than in the ‘month’-clauses, agricultural reality plays a major role in how contracts parties envisage the uncertain future. Contracts concerning future deliveries shows how the agricultural rhythm and human knowledge thereof deeply influence the use of time in legal agreements and the imagination of what is to come.
Late antique Christians, and monks in particular, were supposed to “pray without ceasing” (1 Thess 5:17). But what did this mean in daily life? How many prayers were considered appropriate and what tools did monks have to keep track of their prayer count?
Early Christian church regulations, which are best preserved in Syriac but also partly attested in Coptic, instruct Christians to say the Lord’s prayer thrice a day (Didache 8.2; second century), and later, to observe six prayer times: before dawn, at dawn, in the morning, at noon, in the afternoon and in the evening (Apostolic Constitutions 8.34; fourth century).
John Cassian (d. 435), who temporarily lived as a hermit in Egypt as a youth, observed that monks across Egypt observed a fixed number of twelve prayers during the night and evening services, as early monastic leaders had established (Institutes2.2.3-4; 420s). These prayer moments marked the start and end of a day respectively, and were prayed collectively or individually, in view of the fact that hermits in Nitria only met on Saturday and Sunday to attend mass (Lausiac History7.5).
Pachomius (d. 346), founder of eleven monasteries in southern Egypt – for monks and nuns separately – compiled the first monastic precepts, which are known from Jerome’s Latin translation as ‘the Rule of Pachomius’ (385-420). These regulations make a distinction between communal prayers by the entire community at night, noon and in the evening (nos 20, 9+24, 121), and prayer in the houses in the afternoon, during which six prayers and six Psalms were to be recited (no 155) – twelve prayer units in total. Palladius (d. 431), who had also lived as a monk in Egypt, added that an angel instructed Pachomius to let the monks pray twelve units at night, twelve during the day, twelve at lamp lighting and three in the afternoon (Lausiac History 32.6; ca. 420).
In the two monasteries and one nunnery headed by Shenute (d. 451) near Sohag (southern Egypt) communal prayers took place before dawn, at noon and in the evening, and prayers in the houses in the morning and the afternoon. According to Shenute’s Canons, a prayer round consisted of six units (of a Psalm and a prayer?), and the prayer moments in the houses should normally last three rounds, but in Summer, when the hours were longer than during the rest of the year, monks and nuns had to pray four rounds (Canons 2.166-168). In the morning, four rounds were the norm, but five were prescribed when people woke up too early, and three when they overslept (Canons 2.169-172).
Anecdotes on hermits living in Scetis, Nitria and Kellia (northern Egypt; ca. 400) refer to daily private prayers, listing high numbers to impress and edify the audience. Moses, the penitent Ethiopian robber who became a highly respected hermit and priest, prayed 50 units, and Macarius of Alexandria and Evagrius both recited 100 units (Lausiac History19.6, 20.3, 38.10). Paul of Pherme kept track of 300 units by putting 300 pebbles in his lap and dropping one each time he finished a prayer, until there were no pebbles left. Nevertheless, he felt inadequate upon hearing that a virgin in a certain village reached 700 units (Lausiac History20.1-2; seven prayer moments of 100 units?). According to Macarius the Great, it was not necessary to make long prayers: ‘It is enough to stretch out one’s hands and say: “Lord, as you will, and as you know, have mercy”’ (Sayings of the Desert Fathers, Macarius the Great 19). These numbers came on top of the system of twelve prayers.
Later references to private prayer relate to seventh-century bishops with a monastic background in southern Egypt. After Basil requested Bishop Abraham of Hermonthis (d. 621) to ordain him deacon, he promised to perform one hundred prayer units daily (O. Crum 33). According to literary tradition, Bishop Pesynthios of Koptos (d. 631) used to pray 400 units at night plus an uncountable number of units by day, when he stayed in the desert in the neighboring district during the Sasanian occupation of Egypt (620s; Sahidic Encomium, ed. Budge, fol. 77a)
How did monks and pious Christians keep track of the number of their prayers, especially when they strived for 100 units or more? It is likely that they used prayer beads or prayer ropes (with 100 knots?), which they could easily take with them, but late antique examples have not been archaeologically attested. A quick search for prayer ropes leads to later Byzantine traditions that attribute their introduction to Anthony the Great (d. 356) or Pachomius, as well as to eighteenth-century Coptic icons that depict monastic saints holding a beaded string, and modern Coptic examples (fig. 1).
The only archaeologically attested object that was possibly used for counting prayers is a wooden box inlaid with bone, which displays regular rows of holes on three levels (83 holes in total) and contains smaller objects that can be used as dice (Louvre, E 21047; fig. 2). A small wooden cross used to be attached to the top of the box. Albert Gayet found the object in the tomb of Thaïas in Antinoopolis (Middle Egypt). The Christian woman was buried on a bed of palm branches, in a tunic with silk decoration and leather mules with gilding, while a fine muslin veil covered her face. The way she was buried suggests that she was a religious upper-class woman or even a martyr. Debunking the popular theory that she was the reformed courtesan Thaïs (fourth century), recent scholars dated Thaïas to the seventh century and identified her box as a game board. However, the fact that it was found upright between her folded hands, with the cross turned towards her – like rosaries in later Catholic burials – supports Gayet’s hypothesis that Thaïas used the object as a prayer marker (chaplet).
A later blog will examine the relation between prayer and work.
Fig. 1 Prayer beads of Abuna Gregorius el-Suriany, for 100 units, at Deir el-Surian, in Wadi el-Natrun (el-Sayed Kitat and Hanafy Hassan 2020, fig. 23)
Fig. 2 Game board or chaplet in the position how it was found in Thaïas’ hands (Gayet 1902, 51; upside down)
In every society there are communal feasts, when most people are free from work and schools are closed. Here in the Netherlands, there has been some discussion lately concerning the inclusiveness of these feast days. Why should feasts with a Christian origin, such as Pentecost or even Christmas, be nationwide holidays for everyone, including people without a connection to Christianity? This situation means that people with a different cultural or religious background, are forced to take up vacation days for their (non-Christian) feasts. This is something people with a Christian background, however distant, do not have to do, whether they are religious or not. Some companies are now offering all of their employees extra days off instead of the fixed days, enabling people to schedule their own holidays. In that way, everyone is able to shape their own festival calendar.
In Roman Egypt a similar arrangement seems to have existed. Some people could choose for themselves which days to take off work for festivals. This was only the case for free, relatively wealthy people, like business owners. For others, however, the opportunities had to be regulated. Especially in contracts regarding apprenticeships we can read about such secondary employment conditions. That of a boy who was to undergo a five-year training to become a weaver is exemplary. He had the following line in his contract, dated to the year 183 CE:
‘The boy shall have twenty holidays in the year on account of festivals without any deduction from his wages after the payment of wages begin’. (P.Oxy. 4 725)
In another contract dated to the end of the second century (P. Oxy. 14 1647), we find a comparable arrangement for an enslaved girl, allowing her eighteen days off for festivals.
Eighteen to twenty days off a year seems quite a generous amount, but of course the apprentices did not have the luxury of a weekend, or one fixed rest day every week – the week was in fact barely known in the Roman Empire at this date. These twenty days are marked for festivals, but since the festivals are not specified in the agreement, it looks like these apprentices were free to choose for themselves which festivals to participate in. We know from other sources that there were many more festive days than twenty in a year, so they still had to make a choice. Unfortunately, we have no information on the amount of feast days the weaver scheduled for himself.
A more complicated situation arises in an apprenticeship contract dated to 264CE:
‘And if the boy is idle on any days during the time that he is receiving wages, or (may it not happen) is ill, he shall stay with the overseer for the same number of days, working without wages. And the boy shall have, on account of festival holidays, Tybi, Pachon, the Amesysia seven days, at the Serapeia two days.’ (P. Oxy. 31 2586)
This unnamed boy gets days off for festivals as well, some of which are specified. The Amesysia was a weeklong festival for the goddess Isis, and the Serapeia were celebrated at the temple of the god Serapis. These festivals were apparently so popular at the time, that everyone was participating in them or at least was expected to participate. In another contract the Isis festival is specified as a reason for days off as well, underlining the popularity of this festival. There is, however, some debate on the interpretation of the days off in Tybi (27 December to 25 January) and Pachon (26 April to 25 May). As there are no festivals for Isis or Serapis during these months, some scholars suggested that this meant that the boy was free from work for the entirety of the two months. Because this seems excessive and would contribute to a significant increase in free days compared to our earlier sources, it appears more likely that the boy also receives seven unspecified free days in the months Tybi and Pachon, to be scheduled at will.
The total of free days then amounted to 23 days, which is more in line with the 18 and 20 days mentioned earlier.
In a fourth-century monthly overview of provided camel transportation (CPR 19.66), the presumed owner of the camels kept a meticulous list of delivered goods per day and of the number of camels needed. On some days, he did not record any activity, but these days were ‘free’ (ἀργία). This could mean that there were simply no goods for him to transport or that he decided to take the day off. For instance in the month Tybi, he did not work on Tybi 6 (1 January, the Roman Kalends festival); Tybi 8 (3 January, still part of Kalends festival); Tybi 11 (6 January, the Christian feast of Epiphany, that emerged during the third and fourth centuries); Tybi 17 and Tybi 29. As the first three dates could be connected to a festival, it seems quite likely that at least some of his free days were spent celebrating a festival. Or that there was no work for him, because his clients were at a festival.
Unfortunately, not every month is included in this document, but based on the extant data, the days off would amount to roughly 40, which would be quite a high number just for festivals. It seems therefore safe to assume that the ἀργία-days of the camel owner included both festivals and days where business was slow, which could have overlapped.
This brief analysis shows that in all probability there was some room for individual choices regarding the participation in festivals in Roman Egypt. Celebrating a festival together will make people feel part of a community. But it could also lead to stricter boundaries between communities, if they celebrate different feasts at different times.
This Easter weekend, many people in the Netherlands will have come together with family or friends and perhaps enjoyed a special meal. As Easter is a fixed national holiday, not everyone will have deliberately chosen to celebrate the feast. But because it has been traditionally celebrated for years now, the festivities do contribute to our national festive rhythm, while in the meantime providing us with chocolate eggs.
Every four years, the month of February counts 29 instead of 28 days. Yesterday, this happened again. In this way, our calendar keeps up with the astronomic speed with which the earth runs its course around the sun. Adding this day to February was a measure implemented by Julius Caesar in 46 BCE. It was part of a larger calendrical reform meant to get rid of a discrepancy of no less than 90 days (!) between the Roman calendar of his day and the seasons the months and festivals referred to. Some authors, like Appian and Dio Cassius, say the Egyptian way of measuring time in a calendar had inspired Caesar.
Egypt was indeed clearly ahead of Rome in terms of calendrical knowledge. Before Caesar’s reform, Rome had a calendar of 12 months (of 31, 29 or 28 days) which together formed a 355-day year. This year was irregularly expanded with an intercalary (i.e. thirteenth) month. Such a system of inserting an intercalary month also existed in ancient Greece, but there the months strictly followed the moon, and a regular cycle for intercalation was developed to keep the lunar year in line with the solar year, which made the result less chaotic. Egypt, on the other hand, had long had a perfectly regular 365-day calendar, with twelve 30-day months and five epagomenal (i.e. additional) days at the end of year. The Egyptian astronomers realized that this calendar too moved out of line with the seasons. Already in 238 BCE, there was an attempt to add an extra day to the end of the year every four years to solve this problem. This was decided in the so-called decree of Kanopos, which was inscribed on stone in both Greek and Egyptian. In this decree, priests from all over Egypt expressed their intention to honor the royal couple of Ptolemaios III and Berenike II with a special feast day. To ensure the Egyptian New Year would always coincide with the rising of Sirius, ‘the star of Isis’, this royal holiday was planned as an extra epagomenal day in a four-year cycle. Sadly, this plan was never really implemented, probably due to the unwillingness of priests themselves.
Priestly unwillingness probably also played a role in the persistence of Rome’s flawed calendar. Here the pontifex maximus was responsible for intercalation. Although the problems of the Roman calendar were well known by the second century BCE, the pontifices were very reluctant to change anything to the traditional calendar, which was charged with religious meaning. Their decision whether or not to add an additional month, on the other hand, was often given in by political motives, even when this led to a clear discrepancy between calendar and astronomic reality. When Caesar became pontifex maximus he decided to bring an end to this. To remedy the calendar’s backlog, he added three extra months to the year 46 BCE. For the next years, he added one or two additional days to seven of the months, and turned the king’s intercalary month into an intercalary day. But he was very careful not to change too much, realizing very well that calendar change is a very sensitive topic. He for example kept the alternation between longer and shorter months (which survives up to today), and added the leap day to February, after the sixth day before the Calends of March, that is at the same moment the intercalary month had traditionally been added. This insertion in this particular place is also why the leap day was known as the ‘bissextus’, the ‘second-sixth’ day before the 1st of March.
Caesar sorted out the problem, but those who came after him managed to make a mess out of the calendar again. His successor to the function of pontifex maximus of Rome added the intercalary day every third year instead of every fourth, which again led to a discrepancy between calendar and astronomical year. The emperor Augustus finally restored order to the galaxy by correcting this pontifical mistake.
Caesar’s reform assumed that the length of an astronomical year is exactly 365,25 days long. This is just a tiny bit too long. Only by the sixteenth century CE, the slowly growing discrepancy became an issue. It again was a pontifex maximus of Rome, pope Gregory XIII, who reformed the calendar. His primary concern was not, however, a perfect synchronization of the calendar with the astronomical year in the way it had been designed by Caesar. Gregory wanted to celebrate Easter as the first Council of Nicaea (in 325 CE) had decided a good Christian should. Therefore he only skipped 10 days. Three more would have brought us back in line with Caesar.
Kevin Hoogeveen and Sofie Remijsen
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The main source for this blogpost was: Roland Färber and Rita Gautschy (eds.), Zeit in den Kulturen des Altertums. Antike Chronologie im Spiegel der Quellen (Cologne 2020).
Roman animal hunts, so called venationes, were rare occasions. Seeing wild animals in the arena as they attacked each other or were confronted by human fighters was an exciting sight that spectators did not often get to experience. Outside of Rome and Constantinople, these spectacles were organized in the context of the imperial cult. The priests, who took on the office for the duration of one year, had the responsibility to put on festivities for the civic community. In the case of provincial high priests, these annual festivities involved inviting delegations of all cities of their province to the capital and putting on lavish shows for their entertainment. Invitations to the spectacles were placed in the cities of the province, advertising the duration of the event as well as what types of animals would be shown. However, not every priest could afford to present animal hunts and thus opted for less costly displays instead. This means that in the provincial cities of the late antique Roman empire, animal hunts were at most a yearly occasion.
The financial possibilities of the priests limited how often animal hunts were shown. But the spectacles also had to adhere to imperial legislation, which restricted when they were allowed to be presented. In Late Antiquity, the emperor issued several laws that aimed to reconcile Christian feast days with the spectacles, which were denounced by Church leaders as immoral. By the end of the fourth century, it was no longer allowed to show spectacles on Sundays and by the early-fifth century, the period of Lent and Easter was supposed to be spectacle-free, as were Christmas and Epiphany. These measures can be understood as an attempt by the imperial government to appease Christian voices who relentlessly polemicized against the spectacles and at the same time recognized that they were popular entertainment which the population expected in regular intervals.
For fourth-century Antioch, the capital of the province of Syria, we have insights into the intricacies of organizing animal hunts for the provincial assembly through the correspondences of the Antiochean rhetor Libanius. He tells us that the games had lapsed for a long time before his cousin decided to take on the heavy financial burden of procuring animals and hunters from far-away regions. The population of Antioch thus lived several years without animal hunts being shown in their city. All the more excitement and anticipation was attached to the shows of the cousin, for which Libanius aimed to acquire panthers and bears. We also learn from the rhetor that the spectators were so excited to see the animal spectacles that they would arrive on the previous evening at the amphitheatre and sleep on the stone seats to reserve the places with the best view:
“In the case of other entertainments, people stroll along to them at daybreak, but for the beast fights, they suffer under the night sky and think the stone benches softer than their beds, and the spectators’ eyes anticipate the beast fighters in action!” (Lib.ep.1399, transl. by Bradbury (= B4))
In fact, getting to the venue in time seems to have been crucial to obtaining a good seat. Some tried to reserve a seat by inscribing it – we find such inscriptions in all types of venues, from amphitheatres and theatres to stadia and hippodromes – but this approach seems to have had its limits. A seat inscription from Aphrodisias in Asia Minor reads: “Reserved – don’t quarrel” (Jones 2008, cat.-no. 65.86) which, in turn, tells us that quarreling was not uncommon, with or without inscribed reservation.
The most exciting part of animal hunts were the wild animals themselves. But they also provided the biggest hurdle for the organiser: transporting lions, panthers, or bears to a city just in time for the spectacles was a challenging endeavour. Negligent planning could easily lead to trouble. A fifth-century law from the Codex Theodosianus tells us about wild animals that were on their way to Constantinople and had been kept in the city of Hierapolis in Asia Minor for an astonishing four months, forcing the city to provide shelter and fodder for the animals while the presence of the ferocious lions terrorised the population. The imperial law reacted to this unbearable situation by limiting the amount of time wild animals transports were allowed to stop in any provincial city to seven days.
Vessel in the shape of a kept bear, Western or Eastern Rome, 3rd-4th century AD, cast copper, 13.8 x 16.7 x 9.2cm, Metropolitan Museum of Art (New York), acc.-no.: 66.18. Photo credits: Metropolitan Museum of Art, digital catalogue.
A similar inconvenience happened to Libanius’ cousin while he was trying to put together his animal hunts in Antioch. A letter from the emperor arrived, telling him that he was not allowed to proceed with his shows as planned. The reason was that the emperor himself was to arrive at Antioch and he wanted to enjoy private animal hunts for himself and his close circle. The cousin was supposed to reserve the bears and panthers he had acquired for the enjoyment of the emperor. This meant, as Libanius laments in his letter, that the cousin was either to disinvite all delegations from the provincial cities or to display the animals without killing them as to preserve them for the emperor – but what fun would that be?
“So tell me, what’s he going to do? Will he call off the assembly by announcing that people are to remain in the country and wait for winter? What could be more embarrassing or more costly? For what crime will he endure that punishment? Or will he be obliged to invite the cities and do the rest of it, but then pray over the bears and order no one to wound them even with a judge’s staff? What sort of pleasure is that? How is that not laughable?” (Lib.ep.218, transl. by Bradbury (= B3))
Additionally, the cousin would have to continue to feed the animals until the emperor would reach Antioch, which apparently could take several more weeks or even months. Libanius warns that the costs of keeping the animals much longer than planned could turn out ruinous for his cousin. Unfortunately, we don’t know how the situation resolved since only two of Libanius’ letters on this issue survive. But of course we hope that the cousin in the end was able to present his animal hunts the way he planned and that the people of Antioch got to enjoy a spectacular show.
Konstanze Schiemann
Cited sources:
Libanii opera. Vol. 10: Epistulae 1-839, ed. by R. Foerster, Leipzig 1921.
Libanii opera. Vol. 11: Epistulae 840-1544, ed. by R. Foerster, Leipzig 1922.
Selected Letters of Libanius. From the Age of Constantius and Julian, transl., introd., and with notes by S. Bradbury (= Translated Texts for Historians 41), Liverpool 2004.
Jones, T. 2008: Seating and Spectacle in the Graeco-Roman World, PhD-thesis, McMaster University, Hamilton. Accessed online 18th September 2023: http://hdl.handle.net/11375/15492.
In Sahidic, the main variant of Coptic in late antiquity and the early Islamic period, there are three incomplete sets of names for days of the week (Table 1). Words for Sunday, Friday and Saturday were adopted from the Greek version of the Bible, whereas the days from Monday to Friday were numbered and written in full in Coptic. In the 1940s and early 1950s, the Austrian Coptologist Walter C. Till gradually identified a third set of names that refers to “fasts” and “intervals”, but until recently, scholars still struggled to interpret these. When writing his PhD dissertation (published in 2020), Frederic Krueger rediscovered both their meaning and Till’s findings. As all these publications are in German, and not all of them are available online, it is good to discuss Coptic expressions for the days of the week in a more accessible medium. In addition, the Lived Time project offers the opportunity to examine the use of different sets of names in particular types of texts and regions.
The names of Biblical origin include:
ⲧⲕⲩⲣⲓⲁⲕⲏ, “the Lord’s day”, for Sunday (Κυριακή, short for ἡ Κυριακὴ ἡμέρα; Rev. 1:10);
ⲡⲥⲁⲃⲃⲁⲧⲟⲛ, “the Sabbath”, for Saturday (τό Σάββατον, from the Hebrew Shabbat, “rest”; Ex. 20:10);
ⲧⲡⲁⲣⲁⲥⲕⲉⲩⲏ, “the Preparation (day)” for the Sabbath, for Friday (παρασκευή; Luke 23:54).
The Coptic versions are preceded by a definite article, which is a ⲧ- before the feminine nouns, and the masculine article ⲡ- before ⲡⲥⲁⲃⲃⲁⲧⲟⲛ. Sometimes, ⲡⲥⲁⲃⲃⲁⲧⲟⲛ means “the week”.
The numerical names start with Sunday as the first day of the week: as the seventh day of Creation, on which God rested, was a Saturday, Creation must have started on a Sunday. Monday is ⲡⲉⲥⲛⲁⲩ, “(day) two”, Tuesday ⲡϣⲟⲙⲛ̄ⲧ, “(day) three”, Wednesday ⲡⲉϥⲧⲟⲟⲩ, “(day) four”, Thursday ⲡϯⲟⲩ, “(day) five”, and Friday ⲡⲥⲟⲟⲩ “(day) sixth”. These words consist of a Coptic cardinal number and the definite masculine article ⲡ-/ⲡⲉ-. Sometimes, the numerical names are spelled with ⲙⲉϩ-, the prefix to ordinal numerals, from ⲡⲙⲉϩⲥⲛⲁⲩ, “the second (day)”, for Monday, to ⲡⲙⲉϩⲥⲟⲟⲩ, “the sixth (day)”, for Friday.
Walter Till played a significant role in establishing the third set of names. When publishing Coptic farmers’ almanacs, collections of calendrical and meteorological omens used for planning agricultural activities, he discovered that ⲧⲕⲟⲩⲓ ⲛ̄ⲛⲏⲥⲧⲓⲁ, “the little fast”, and ⲧⲛⲟϭ ⲛ̄ⲛⲏⲥⲧⲓⲁ, “the great fast”, indicate Wednesday and Friday respectively (1943). ⲧⲛⲏⲥⲧⲓⲁ ϣⲏⲙ, “the little fast”, and ⲧⲛⲏⲥⲧⲓⲁ ⲱ (or ⲟⲩ), “the great fast”, are attested as well (1947). These expressions refer to the early Christian tradition to fast every “fourth day” to remember Jesus’ betrayal by Judas,[1] and every Friday to remember his crucifixion (Didascalia v. 13), two weekly fasts that are still observed by the Coptic Orthodox Church. Till surmised that Thursday was ⲡⲟⲩⲱϣ ⲛ̄ⲧⲙⲏⲧⲉ, “the interval in between”, or just ⲡⲟⲩⲱϣ, “the interval” (1947). His hypothesis is confirmed by a Sahidic lectionary fragment from Aswan (tenth century?), which also demonstrates that the hitherto unclear expressions ⲡϣⲟⲣⲡ ⲛ̄ϩⲟⲟⲩ ⲛ̄ⲟⲩⲱϣ, “the first interval day”, and ⲡⲙⲉϩⲥⲛⲁⲩ ⲛ̄ϩⲟⲟⲩ ⲛ̄ⲟⲩⲱϣ, “the second interval day”, refer to Monday and Tuesday (ed. Drescher 1951). Till discussed these alternative names in a festive volume (1953), and included them in the revised edition of his Koptische Grammatik (1961).
A quick survey for the Lived Time project reveals the text types and regions in which the expressions for week days appear (Table 2). Apart from the documentary texts, most examples postdate late antiquity. Interestingly, the day of the week is never included in dating formulas in Coptic contracts, which indicates that they were not considered relevant for calendrical purposes. In funerary inscriptions they are rare as well, appearing only in two epitaphs from the Monastery of St Jeremias at Saqqara, which refer to Thursday and Sunday by Greek numerical names written in digits: ἡ(μέρας) ε, “day 5” (AD 787), and ἡ(μέρας) α, “day 1” (AD 806).
As for the names of Biblical origin, ⲡⲥⲁⲃⲃⲁⲧⲟⲛ and ⲧⲕⲩⲣⲓⲁⲕⲏ indicate Saturday and Sunday in all text types. ⲧⲡⲁⲣⲁⲥⲕⲉⲩⲏ only occurs in a homily and in the lectionary from Aswan, which records no less than three words for Friday, as the three scribes who compiled it used different words.
Coptic numerical names are rare as well: they are only found in the lectionary from Aswan (ⲡⲙⲉϩⲥⲛⲁⲩ–ⲡⲙⲉϩⲥⲟⲟⲩ), and in a note in a literary manuscript from the White Monastery near Sohag (ⲡⲉϥⲧⲟⲟⲩ and ⲡⲥⲟⲟⲩ).
The examples for “the little fast” and “the great fast”, on the other hand, are more numerous. The spellings with ⲕⲟⲩⲓ and ⲛⲟϭ appear in a letter from the Hermopolite region, a Coptic farmers’ almanac, a literary manuscript, and the lectionary from Aswan. These attestations do not point to a particular region or period, unlike ⲧⲛⲏⲥⲧⲓⲁ ϣⲏⲙ and ⲧⲛⲏⲥⲧⲉⲓⲁ ⲟⲩ, which are found in monastic / ecclesiastic correspondence from early seventh-century Western Thebes. Some letters were addressed to the hermit Epiphanius (ca. 615–620), the leader of a hermitage, and to Bishop Pesynthios of Koptos, who stayed at this hermitage in the 620s. The expressions were used by monks, clergymen and laymen.
Expressions with ⲡⲟⲩⲱϣ for Thursday are recorded in different kinds of sources from all over Egypt: letters from Western Thebes, an inscription at the Monastery of St Jeremias at Saqqara, a literary text from a monastery near Edfu, and the lectionary from Aswan. The “first interval day” and “second interval day” for Monday and Tuesday appear in letters from Western Thebes (the hermitage of Epiphanius) and in the lectionary from Aswan, where “first” and “second” are replaced by digits (ⲁ ⲛⲟⲩⲱϣ and ⲃ ⲛⲟⲩⲱϣ).
In short, a quick survey reveals that ⲧⲕⲩⲣⲓⲁⲕⲏ and ⲡⲥⲁⲃⲃⲁⲧⲟⲛ are the standard words for Sunday and Saturday, whereas there are no less than five different words for Friday (ⲧⲡⲁⲣⲁⲥⲕⲉⲩⲏ, ⲡⲥⲟⲟⲩ, ⲡⲙⲉϩⲥⲟⲟⲩ, ⲧⲛⲟϭ ⲛ̄ⲛⲏⲥⲧⲓⲁ and ⲧⲛⲏⲥⲧⲓⲁ ⲟⲩ). In general, numerical names for Monday to Thursday mainly appear in lectionaries, and alternative names for Monday to Friday in letters. Most examples of alternative names come from a mixed monastic / ecclesiastic milieu in Western Thebes (early seventh century), where monks, clergymen and laymen alike used the expressions ⲧⲛⲏⲥⲧⲓⲁ ϣⲏⲙ and ⲧⲛⲏⲥⲧⲉⲓⲁ ⲟⲩ, “the little fast” and “the great fast”, for Wednesday and Friday respectively. By contrast, ⲧⲕⲟⲩⲓ ⲛ̄ⲛⲉⲥⲧⲓⲁ and ⲧⲛⲟϭ ⲛ̄ⲛⲏⲥⲧⲓⲁ, which have the same meanings, appear in sources from different parts of Egypt and in different types of texts. Interestingly, Biblical, numerical and alternative names can also be found together in a single source: the lectionary from Aswan, which was compiled by three scribes, who used different expressions. Further research is likely to reveal more (late) examples of names of week days in lectionaries and literary texts.
Renate Dekker
Relevant literature
Till, W.C. “Bemerkungen zu koptischen Textausgaben. 7–8”, Orientalia. Nova Series 12 (1943), 328–337, particularly 330–332.
Till, W.C. “Neue koptische Wochentagsbezeichnungen”, Orientalia. Nova Series 16.1 (1947), 130–135.
Till, W.C. “Die Wochentagsnamen in Koptischen”, Publications de l’Institut d’études orientales de la Bibliothèque Patriarcale d’Alexandrie 2 (= Tome commémoratif du millénaire de la Bibliothèque Patriarcale d’Alexandrie), Alexandria 1953, 101–110.
[1] Two interesting things come into play here. First, the day did not start at sunrise, but in the night before, just as “there was evening, and there was morning – the first day” (Gen. 1:5). Second, according to the Didascalia (preserved in Syriac and Latin), the Last Supper and Jesus’ arrest took place on Tuesday eve (that is, Wednesday), Jesus remained in detention on Wednesday, and was handed over to Pilate on Thursday. In general, the Eastern and Western Church traditions remember Judas’ plan to betray Jesus on Wednesday, the Last Supper and Jesus’ arrest on Thursday, and his delivery to Pilate on Friday.
